


A Minute's Notice

by Azzandra



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous Sole Survivor, Drug Use, Gen, kink meme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 04:54:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5954356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a different world, the Sole Survivor meets the General of the Minutemen: a ghoul going by the name of John Hancock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Minute's Notice

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fill for [a kink meme prompt](http://falloutkinkmeme.livejournal.com/6855.html?thread=18041543#t18041543), asking for a backstory swap between John Hancock and Preston Garvey. I was intrigued by the possibility.

The day the sole survivor of Vault 111 stumbled upon the Minutemen for the first time was, coincidentally, the day their general came down like a ton of bricks on a squabbling settlement.  
  
It was, for the most part, complete happenstance that any of the respective parties happened to be passing through at all. The Minutemen were few and far between, still not recovered from a recent history of betrayal and political fracture. Their patrols were stretched very thin across the Commonwealth, even the General having to provide boots on the ground, like the common grunt.  
  
The hapless vault-dweller, on the other hand, was wandering along a caravan trade route, seeking employment and scavenge.  
  
And the settlement was right on that trade route, a minor stop that most caravans bypassed completely on a good traveling day. Two family farms perched on two different hillocks, and between them stretched a brown swathe of land, mostly scraggly grass and dead trees, but still good enough to be fighting over. Apparently after a small stream stopped flowing through, neither farm house could agree anymore where the border between their farmlands was.  
  
And now the families, armed with a rusty array of old guns and farming implements, were clustered in the shallow valley between their farms, venomously glaring at each other while the heads of their respective families shouted and argued their case to the Minutemen trying to keep the peace.  
  
It was, to the eye of someone born and raised before the Great War, very much a Hatfields-and-McCoys type of situation in the making, and thus warranting at least the caution of letting someone _else_ get in the middle of that impending blood feud.  
  
Which the General very much was. Garbed in an impressive blue uniform, with his tricorn hat tilted back at an angle, General John Hancock of the Minutemen stood between the belligerent farmers and listened to their griping with an unconcerned, half-lidded expression on his face. Perhaps the General was the unshakable sort--a lot of ghouls tended to be that way. Or perhaps his nerve had more to do with the chems in his system; he was lazily chewing on some Mentats even as the farmers around him grew increasingly red in the face.  
  
The Minutemen accompanying the General were, on the other hand, alert and at the ready, their eyes scanning the gathered settlers for any sign of impending violence. One shot would be all it took to turn this disagreement into a bloodbath, and the Minutemen were not about to let this situation get to that point.  
  
Though, perhaps, the General was not as relaxed as he looked, either.  
  
When the patriarch of one family made to push or poke at his rival on the other side of the argument, in a movement so swift that it startled the other people standing nearest, the General threw his arms up and around the shoulders of the two arguing men like they were old drinking buddies of his.  
  
"Well, there we have, then," the General said, his voice rising over the argument and cutting through it, even though he himself sounded perfectly jovial instead of angry.  
  
The two arguing individuals, now stuck beneath opposite arms of the General and apparently unable to extricate themselves, actually fell silent in mild confusion. Everyone else shared baffled looks, even across family lines.  
  
"That's a great idea if ever I heard one," the General continued. "We'll get right on it."  
  
"What's a great idea?" one of the arguing men asked.  
  
"Oh, come on now, don't the two of you be shy, you're the ones who came up with this idea," the General continued.

The men, momentarily forgetting their argument, looked at each other, now united in complete confusion. And with the General's arms still clamped around their shoulders in what was beginning to look less like a friendly embrace and more like a vise grip, keeping them from doing anything stupid.  
  
"Ronnie, how many of those frag mines we got?" the General asked over his shoulder.  
  
One of the Minutemen, an old woman with a beret and a sour cast to her face, was the one who answered.  
  
"Not enough to waste on idiots," the woman groused.  
  
"Mines?" one of the settlers asked, eye widened almost comically.  
  
"Sure, sure," the General continued.  
  
Only now did he release the arguing heads of the families, who backed up from him quickly.  
  
"You two said it yourselves, after all," the General continued calmly, gesturing to the ground around them. "You both agreed you'd rather die than let the other get this stretch of dirt, right?" Something turned sharp in the General's expression then. "So that's what the mines are for."  
  
The argument erupted again, and this time, instead of being merely in the middle, the General received the brunt of the two men's ire as they unloaded their objections on him.  
  
A sharp, ear-piercing whistle cut through the air, and the yelling stopped as almost everyone, including the uninvolved vault-dweller standing a way's away, winced in pain.  
  
Eyes turned to Ronnie, as the source of the painful sound.  
  
"Let the General finish talking," Ronnie grunted, as the Minuteman standing closest to her blinked rapidly and rubbed his ear.  
  
"As I was saying," the General continued casually, almost unconcerned, "my people here are going to be mining the disputed territory. It won't be forever, don't worry. I'll have my people here check in regularly, and we'll mark the minefield responsibly so nobody goes traipsing over it and gets their bits blown off on accident. This'll give you all the time you need to work something out while not having to worry about guarding this spot all the time. So you can take as loooong as you want, no worry."  
  
The less belligerent settlers on both sides looked swayed by the argument, and whispered between themselves. The ones with tightened jaws and tighter grips on their weapons looked less convinced, instead staring in stony, sullen silence at the General.  
  
The General's eyes flicked between them, and he gave the gathered families a lazy smile.  
  
"Look, don't think of it as you losing the land," the General continued, hands spread out, "think of this as a sure way to know the other guys don't get to have it. That's the next best thing to having it for yourselves, isn't it? It's almost like winning."  
  
This was an honorable enough way to save face, and the General knew the more level-headed settlers were going to take it. People started peeling off the edges of each group, going back to chores or more important business. One farmer ran to his house cursing about a pot which had been left to boil.  
  
The more stubborn settlers stayed to argue with the General, this time their voices leveling out at a reasonable volume, but it was clear General Hancock was undeterred. He smiled, and nodded, and clapped people on their shoulders, but sometimes his tone or expression took on an intimidating edge, the slightest bit of 'don't push your luck' in the set of his jaw. He managed to appease the arguing men, by this strange mix of charm and intimidation, and at the end, he even managed to make them begrudgingly shake hands.  
  
Meanwhile, the Minutemen began unloading fragmentation mines from a bag, and Ronnie groused some more about the waste of good explosives even as she took out a piece of paper and began marking out the way the mines should be laid out most efficiently.  
  
The General took out a Jet inhaler after the last settlers dispersed, and took a long hit, savoring it with a roll of his shoulders. Then he strolled casually in the direction of the silent witness who'd been watching the entire thing play out.  
  
He smiled that sharp smile of his, and this up close, there was nothing lazy or relaxed about his half-lidded gaze.  
  
The Minutemen got a new recruit that day.


End file.
